Health minister Dr Dan Poulter told the House of Commons that the government was determined to make sure there was ‘equality of finance per patient according to need’.

Dr Poulter urged practices to cut costs by sharing back-office functions and said MPIG was ‘unfair because practices serving very similar populations are paid very different amounts’.

Labour MP for Sheffield Central Paul Blomfield told Mr Poulter that MPIG payments had been introduced to meet the specific needs of specific practices. ‘Those needs have not changed,’ he added.

No MPIG guarantee

Asked to give a guarantee that no practice would be forced to close by the withdrawal of MPIG, Mr Poulter said: ‘The point is this: the funding system set up by the previous government was based on historical funding and did not necessarily recognise the needs of patients. That was unfair; we have changed it.’

The health minister said NHS England was working locally with practices hit hard by the removal of MPIG.